Earlier on Thursday the markets were up on positive manufacturing reports in both the US and China and jobless claims that fell close to a multi-year low. A gauge of US economic health was also released today, showing an increase in July and pointing to modest improvement. In the afternoon trading on the Nasdaq was interrupted by a technical issue but resumed a few hours later. Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF) dropped sharply after reporting Q2 earnings that were below expectations. Shares of Yahoo (YHOO) were up after a report that the company's web traffic beat out Google (GOOG) in July.